Messaging services, as are known today, had their origins in Instant Messaging (IM), which started prior to the advent of the World Wide Web. Since then, the concept of messaging has undergone a healthy and continued evolution while maintaining its status as a very popular application program across many communication systems. More recent extensions include chat rooms and micro blogging with a social network aspect (e.g., Twitter). Extensions of these messaging services are being adopted inside enterprise environments as well. Over mobile networks, conventional messaging services include short message service (SMS) and multimedia message service (MMS). Simultaneously, messaging services have also served as a platform to offer various value added services such as ringtones and wallpaper downloads. Given the unprecedented growth and adoption of smart phones, mobile messaging services are also undergoing a rapid evolution, which includes mobile versions of micro blogging, enterprise mobile messaging services, and group messaging services.
In all the above examples, there are participants and a messaging provider (who could be different from the provider of the communication network infrastructure, i.e., network provider, within which the messaging service is hosted). Moreover, all messages traverse the network with little or no support for security even though messages are stored in various servers before delivery. In particular, messages are seldom encrypted or authenticated. The only form of security that may be available is encryption and/or integrity protection over an access link (such as mobile wireless). Even in these limited settings, access network providers often “turn off” security features to conserve computing power.